The Green Space
About Us
Our Mission
As global temperatures rise, the need to be informed and engaged has never been greater. Keepers of the Green Spaces is founded on the view that we all have a roll to play in ending our Climate Crisis through education, art, community, caring and action. KGS delivers commentary and environmental news updates aimed at empowering and inspiring people to agitate for our essential rights to a climate system capable of sustaining and nurturing human life and wellbeing, and equally the wellbeing of our Earth.
Indigenous elders are traveling to the West in unprecedented numbers from imperiled rain forests, mountains and desert homes to share wisdom traditions and urgent calls for change in the way we relate to Nature. Nature constituencies are working to secure biodiverse ecosystems. World leaders are wrestling with environmental policies while economists are calculating the escalating costs that overconsumption and rising emissions are exacting from our planet. More people at community and national levels are getting involved. We can all do something, starting with connecting on these issues, talking about what can be done with as many people as possible. It's all-hands-on-deck time. As Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation: "When we ask ourselves what is our responsibility to the Earth, we are also asking, what is our gift?
Greetings! My name is Suzanne Miller and I am founder and editor of KGS and a long-time international financial journalist, editor, and poet based in New York. I have covered international business, economies and markets for more than 20 years, as London bureau chief for CBS MarketWatch, stringer for Newsweek, correspondent for AP-Dow Jones, writer for Institutional Investor, Euromoney, The Banker, The New York Post and others.
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Five years ago I went to Peru's Amazon rainforest for a plant dieta with the Shipibo, an indigenous group renowned for their gifts as plant-based healers with a deeply integrative knowledge of Mother Nature. I met other indigenous elders from around the world -- healers, teachers and leaders who have been traveling to the West to help their home territories and our planet. Many are emphasizing the importance of a positive perspective to effect real and enduring change withiin ourselves and our environment. “We can’t have this consciousness rising from out of fear,” says Kandymaku, an indigenous Arhuaco from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia. “This consciousness must come from respect, tolerance and love.”
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Each of us has something we can offer. “I do what I can do,” said Benki Piyako, a renowned leader, healer and environmental activist from the Ashininka people of Brazil when he was speaking to a New York audience. Over 28 years ago, he started a reforestation project in Brazil's State of Acre. Lacking funds, he enlisted his community to plant trees. Today, they have replanted more than two million trees.
Naba IriTah Shenmira, a Dogan elder from Mali in West Africa, says of his community: “We understand that one human being can make a change in a whole nation by being able to change themselves first. When you have a good perspective, invest that perspective in another human being. If that person’s life starts changing, they start changing another’s life."
Understanding how we are all connected to each other, through Nature, has never been more important than right now. We will not solve the current Climate Crisis alone or standing still. This website joins a growing number of publications that are covering the Climate Emergency from increasingly comprehensive perspectives. The word is catching, and this is encouraging. We need to stay informed, stay strong and stay engaged. This is our Planet - it’s the only one we’ve got.